In the first period of a still-scoreless game Friday, simply going on the power play wasn’t enough for the Blues. They tried to make it a two-man advantage.Six skaters were on the ice for about 10 seconds before Vladimir Sobotka did a nonchalant retreat to the bench. Too late. Too many men on the ice.

Referees blew the play dead and the Blues’ power play was negated in their 4-2 victory over Edmonton.

“Well, it was just a bad talk between me and ‘Dags’ (teammate Matt D’Agostini),’’ Sobotka said. “We’ve got to call who’s changing who. We just need to figure this out and talk more.”

That might be an understatement. The Blues were whistled again in the second period for having too many men on the ice, marking the fifth time in the last seven games the club has been guilty of the infraction.

“We’re hot,” Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. “We’re right on the mark there. We’re going very well in that area. We’re building up the (penalty minutes).”

Hitchcock was certainly being sarcastic, later saying the penalties angered him.

After having three such penalties in their six previous games, the Blues worked on line changes during their recent practice days. But Hitchcock contested the problem isn’t the line changes.

“It’s doziness,” he said. “We get caught every time at the end of power plays because we use two forwards all the time. That’s the fourth time we’ve got caught on the gate. Instead of going in a similar gate, we’ve got caught on long gates. That’s unfortunate. Unless we play defenseman back there, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”